We went the whole Monty with our FEELINGS

It is almost exactly 20 years ago to the day that Britain's national character changed utterly. Or more precisely, it's 20 years since it became abundantly clear that there had taken place a shift in the way we in the UK, and the Western world in general, conducted ourselves in the public sphere.

The now infamous 'outpouring of grief' over the death of Princess Diana that followed her death on 31 August 1997 came as a shock to many. Yet it was no aberration, no insignificant isolated incident, even if Diana herself has been relatively forgotten.

We went on a bender.

If [soccer-player] Paul Gascoigne's celebrated tears in Italia '90 were, in hindsight, an early indication of the transformation of a nation's psychology, Diana's death seven years later put into sharp relief what had indeed changed.

It represented something quite profound: it signified the coming of a new era of emotionalism, and the twilight of the age of reason and rationalism.

We see it and its consequences all around today, from therapy culture, virtue signalling and the promotion of 'self-esteem', to hate-crime legislation, offence-taking, censorship, Safe Space and trigger warnings. September 1997 signalled the dawn of the age of feelings and emotion.